NEW DELHI: Delhi’s Education Minister Manish Sisodia on Sunday said Covid-19 has taught that systems need to quickly adapt to technology. Taking part in a conversation on mental health and ‘socio-emotional’ learning at the Harvard Social Enterprise Conference, Sisodia said: “The biggest takeaway from Covid, for our public education, has been that technology is here to stay.
We need to quickly adapt our systems and encourage the use of technology. Adopting the right approaches to inculcate technology within our education would in fact make learning more inclusive.” Sisodia, who is also the Deputy CM, had said while presenting the Delhi budget for 2021-22 that the AAP government will be the first to start a ‘Virtual Classroom’. He mentioned this as a big step towards embracing technology.
“Our contribution to the rising need of technology is highlighted by the introduction of Delhi’s First Virtual School model. I can say this would be our own kind of experiment in India. The Virtual School will carry the hallmarks of any regular government school in the city, like students, teachers, regular teaching-learning activities, assessments. Most importantly, there will be provision for holistic education for all students” added Sisodia.
The Harvard Social Enterprise Conference explores the space between people, decision makers and the diverse sources of social innovation, social enterprise, who it is for, what role it can play and why. The theme for this year’s conference is “Resilience and Reckoning” with “Innovations in Mental Health” as agenda for this panel discussion.
“There has always been a dire need to inculcate resilience in our daily lives through education. During the pandemic period, staying at home was in itself a big trauma. Children faced an immense loss of learning, there was a looming uncertainty regarding the future and many people lost their jobs. These were tough times for all and resilience played a key role here,” added Sisodia.